Discuss Crane's treatment of nature in The Red Badge of Courage and Henry's shifting attitudes towards it

To understand the role nature plays in The Red Badge of Courage, we must analyse Crane's use of imagery and references to nature in relation to Henry's experiences. We must also note the personification of nature, which allows us to speculate upon its attitude towards Henry (or to humanity), under the presumption that it actually has the ability to care or not. Naming army troops and weaponry as monsters, dragons, reptiles and serpents is common …

…ory (Henry encounters a single corpse in the isolated "chapel", his friend Jim Conclin desires to be left alone in his time of death and "the tattered man [is left] wandering about helplessly in the field" to die). Humanity can thus survive only as a collective, since, as Henry has learned, Nature is utterly indifferent to its fate. Sources: - Stephen Crane: The Red Badge of Courage, Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, Berkshire, Great Britain, 1994